antonyh
07-05-2007, 10:08 PM
From:
http://www.thoughttheater.com/2007/07/an_open_letter_to_michael_glatze.php
Dear Michael,
I read your posting at World Net Daily and I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on your thoughts and the larger subjects of sexuality, religion, and authenticity.
First, let me say that your words express an inner anguish that seems to have been your companion for many years. I have great sympathy for your heartache. Your attempt to resolve that anguish is noble, however your efforts to extrapolate your own journey as a tonic for all that ails others within the gay community is sadly misguided.
I don’t know you so I hesitate to offer my observations without one important caveat. Your life has been lived by and large in the public sphere…first when you embraced homosexuality through YGA and your many other activities…and now as you embrace an alternate reality that you have chosen to share through World Net Daily. Therefore, I make the assumption that both then and now, it has been your choice to submit yourself to the scrutiny of others. If I’m wrong, my apologies.
You note that YGA “was meant to fill a void” for young gay Americans…something not so “pornographic”. Is it possible that YGA was meant to first and foremost fill your own void and to combat your own issues with pornography? Let me elaborate. You see pornography is not the unique domain of homosexuals…it is available to virtually all sexual persuasions and curiosities…and one has the free will to partake or to pass.
I’ve read gay newspapers and periodicals for many years and I’ve always known I had the discretion to read and view those articles, advertisements, and photographs of my choosing. When you speak of homosexuality as being “by its very nature pornographic” isn’t it plausible that what you are actually explaining is how you elected to define your own affiliation with homosexuality? Keep in mind that one can affiliate with heterosexuality in the very same manner…maybe you have yet to discover that prerogative.
You also state that “homosexuality is not exactly ‘virtuous’”. Clearly, virtue is not innate to any sexual preference…just as it isn’t innate to Italians, Caucasians, tall people, people near the equator, or people who drive yellow cars. Virtue is a chosen state of being that is available to all humans. Your proximity to virtue during your homosexuality was a function of your actions as a human being with free will…not something one can definitively obtain or be denied as a result of some affiliation. If you lacked virtue, YOU lacked virtue…being gay need not separate one from virtue.
You indicate that “homosexuality prevents US from finding our true self within. We cannot see the truth when we’re blinded by homosexuality.” The quest to find ones self should never be sought through affiliations. The fact that you couldn’t find communion with your self while you identified as a homosexual is not an indictment of homosexuality…it is an indication of your own internal conflicts…conflicts you played out in the public arena then and conflicts you now purport to have resolved in an alternate reality…once again seeking to air your process on the public stage. Unfortunately, your process now is not necessarily any more authentic than your process then.
What remains consistent is your need for others to affirm who and what you are whenever and wherever you tell us what you are. Don’t take this wrong, but I recall a time when I would fret about eating in a restaurant by myself…all I could think about was what others may be thinking it said about me. In a conversation with a wise friend, I mentioned my hesitation and she offered this observation, “Daniel, what makes you think you’re that important or that relevant in the minds of other diners? Why you are there eating alone is only meaningful to you.”
You see it was my perception that was flawed, not my situation. I was living outside of myself and relying on outside feedback to affirm myself…an exercise in futility. May I suggest you remain in the same predicament though you’ve altered your scenery? You proceed to state that you became aware of your homosexuality when you “noticed that I looked at other guys” and that you resolved your desires by paying attention to yourself. You continue by stating, “Every time I was tempted to lust, I noticed it.” Your words are clues to your own flawed perception. How you see other men…lustfully…is of your making…it is the perception you brought to your experience with homosexuality. The men you lusted after were not the issue…it was what you carried within.
Unfortunately, you attempt to apply your reality to all other homosexuals…once again illuminating your need for external affirmation…and in your current circumstances you need to vilify that which you no longer want to inhabit your psyche. Sadly, electing to announce your heterosexual affiliation is not the equivalent of extinguishing your flawed perceptions nor does it mean you will approach your heterosexuality any differently than you did your homosexuality. The healing of the heart is not an external event that is subject too, or a function of, ones proximity to any particular societal construct…in this instance heterosexuality.
You then pivot towards religion and your search for, and discovery of, your “God-given self”. Lacking in that observation is the realization that others may already be in harmony with their god-given selves. You see, may I regrettably suggest that you suffer the belief held by so many who identify as born again…you presume that everyone else must have lost sight of their god-given identities and is therefore in need of rebirth. May I posit that this is once again demonstrative of your need for external validation of your processes, your identity, and all that you experience? In other words, you are still a victim of your inability to embrace an identity of your own volition absent reinforcing feedback.
Your words provide further insight into your struggle. You state, “Lust takes us out of our bodies, “attaching” our psyche onto someone else’s physical form”. More telling words may have never been uttered. What you describe is your own persistent psychic wound that manifests itself in the objectification of others in order to fill an internal void…one you must believe to be insatiable and outside your capacity to repair. You see, your demons are just that…your demons. While you may find comfort in believing that every other homosexual has the same demons…that belief is merely a defense mechanism your ego employs to assuage the pain.
I would also speculate that the mindset you held put you in contact with people suffering similar struggles…thereby allowing you to reach your misguided conclusion that all homosexuals were like you. As difficult as this may be to hear, the friends I have would have little difficulty identifying you and your particular perceptions and the flawed judgments that they foster. That reality likely limited your exposure…but it certainly did not serve as a legitimate basis for your current hypothesis. You see, all that you have identified in your diatribe against homosexuality is that portion of your identity that you subconsciously find detestable. I’m sorry for your dilemma but I reject your conclusion.
Near the end of your essay, you state that “homosexuality took almost 16 years of my life and compromised them with one lie or another”. Shame on you. That statement is an affront to everything else you ask us to embrace. At what point will you take personal responsibility for your own behavior? The pursuit of truth is not a construct you get to strap on when it serves you and pine for when you lack the wherewithal to seek it.
What you need to strive for is authenticity. Your persona as a cheerleader in the latest and greatest uniform of your liking is simply the measure of your inauthentic self. Your predicament is sad and I feel for you…but your carelessness and your cavalier capacity to tear down whatever no longer serves your fragile identity is indefensible and unacceptable.
The fact that you now wrap yourself in the glorious guise of god may once again serve your masked and manipulative inner master but it puts you no closer to truth. You contend that god wins in the end because you have chosen to co-opt god to augment your own disenfranchisement from self-truth. While you have hitched your wagon to this particular iteration of truth, it doesn’t mean you have found truth. You have simply found a new mechanism of certainty that can be substituted for the ever elusive identity that in the end has ironically come to define who you are and who you aren’t.
Michael, I hope you’re able to find peace…but I have to implore you to do so without attacking those who have journeyed much further along the path.
Regards,
Daniel
Response to this article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56487
http://www.thoughttheater.com/2007/07/an_open_letter_to_michael_glatze.php
Dear Michael,
I read your posting at World Net Daily and I wanted to share some of my own thoughts on your thoughts and the larger subjects of sexuality, religion, and authenticity.
First, let me say that your words express an inner anguish that seems to have been your companion for many years. I have great sympathy for your heartache. Your attempt to resolve that anguish is noble, however your efforts to extrapolate your own journey as a tonic for all that ails others within the gay community is sadly misguided.
I don’t know you so I hesitate to offer my observations without one important caveat. Your life has been lived by and large in the public sphere…first when you embraced homosexuality through YGA and your many other activities…and now as you embrace an alternate reality that you have chosen to share through World Net Daily. Therefore, I make the assumption that both then and now, it has been your choice to submit yourself to the scrutiny of others. If I’m wrong, my apologies.
You note that YGA “was meant to fill a void” for young gay Americans…something not so “pornographic”. Is it possible that YGA was meant to first and foremost fill your own void and to combat your own issues with pornography? Let me elaborate. You see pornography is not the unique domain of homosexuals…it is available to virtually all sexual persuasions and curiosities…and one has the free will to partake or to pass.
I’ve read gay newspapers and periodicals for many years and I’ve always known I had the discretion to read and view those articles, advertisements, and photographs of my choosing. When you speak of homosexuality as being “by its very nature pornographic” isn’t it plausible that what you are actually explaining is how you elected to define your own affiliation with homosexuality? Keep in mind that one can affiliate with heterosexuality in the very same manner…maybe you have yet to discover that prerogative.
You also state that “homosexuality is not exactly ‘virtuous’”. Clearly, virtue is not innate to any sexual preference…just as it isn’t innate to Italians, Caucasians, tall people, people near the equator, or people who drive yellow cars. Virtue is a chosen state of being that is available to all humans. Your proximity to virtue during your homosexuality was a function of your actions as a human being with free will…not something one can definitively obtain or be denied as a result of some affiliation. If you lacked virtue, YOU lacked virtue…being gay need not separate one from virtue.
You indicate that “homosexuality prevents US from finding our true self within. We cannot see the truth when we’re blinded by homosexuality.” The quest to find ones self should never be sought through affiliations. The fact that you couldn’t find communion with your self while you identified as a homosexual is not an indictment of homosexuality…it is an indication of your own internal conflicts…conflicts you played out in the public arena then and conflicts you now purport to have resolved in an alternate reality…once again seeking to air your process on the public stage. Unfortunately, your process now is not necessarily any more authentic than your process then.
What remains consistent is your need for others to affirm who and what you are whenever and wherever you tell us what you are. Don’t take this wrong, but I recall a time when I would fret about eating in a restaurant by myself…all I could think about was what others may be thinking it said about me. In a conversation with a wise friend, I mentioned my hesitation and she offered this observation, “Daniel, what makes you think you’re that important or that relevant in the minds of other diners? Why you are there eating alone is only meaningful to you.”
You see it was my perception that was flawed, not my situation. I was living outside of myself and relying on outside feedback to affirm myself…an exercise in futility. May I suggest you remain in the same predicament though you’ve altered your scenery? You proceed to state that you became aware of your homosexuality when you “noticed that I looked at other guys” and that you resolved your desires by paying attention to yourself. You continue by stating, “Every time I was tempted to lust, I noticed it.” Your words are clues to your own flawed perception. How you see other men…lustfully…is of your making…it is the perception you brought to your experience with homosexuality. The men you lusted after were not the issue…it was what you carried within.
Unfortunately, you attempt to apply your reality to all other homosexuals…once again illuminating your need for external affirmation…and in your current circumstances you need to vilify that which you no longer want to inhabit your psyche. Sadly, electing to announce your heterosexual affiliation is not the equivalent of extinguishing your flawed perceptions nor does it mean you will approach your heterosexuality any differently than you did your homosexuality. The healing of the heart is not an external event that is subject too, or a function of, ones proximity to any particular societal construct…in this instance heterosexuality.
You then pivot towards religion and your search for, and discovery of, your “God-given self”. Lacking in that observation is the realization that others may already be in harmony with their god-given selves. You see, may I regrettably suggest that you suffer the belief held by so many who identify as born again…you presume that everyone else must have lost sight of their god-given identities and is therefore in need of rebirth. May I posit that this is once again demonstrative of your need for external validation of your processes, your identity, and all that you experience? In other words, you are still a victim of your inability to embrace an identity of your own volition absent reinforcing feedback.
Your words provide further insight into your struggle. You state, “Lust takes us out of our bodies, “attaching” our psyche onto someone else’s physical form”. More telling words may have never been uttered. What you describe is your own persistent psychic wound that manifests itself in the objectification of others in order to fill an internal void…one you must believe to be insatiable and outside your capacity to repair. You see, your demons are just that…your demons. While you may find comfort in believing that every other homosexual has the same demons…that belief is merely a defense mechanism your ego employs to assuage the pain.
I would also speculate that the mindset you held put you in contact with people suffering similar struggles…thereby allowing you to reach your misguided conclusion that all homosexuals were like you. As difficult as this may be to hear, the friends I have would have little difficulty identifying you and your particular perceptions and the flawed judgments that they foster. That reality likely limited your exposure…but it certainly did not serve as a legitimate basis for your current hypothesis. You see, all that you have identified in your diatribe against homosexuality is that portion of your identity that you subconsciously find detestable. I’m sorry for your dilemma but I reject your conclusion.
Near the end of your essay, you state that “homosexuality took almost 16 years of my life and compromised them with one lie or another”. Shame on you. That statement is an affront to everything else you ask us to embrace. At what point will you take personal responsibility for your own behavior? The pursuit of truth is not a construct you get to strap on when it serves you and pine for when you lack the wherewithal to seek it.
What you need to strive for is authenticity. Your persona as a cheerleader in the latest and greatest uniform of your liking is simply the measure of your inauthentic self. Your predicament is sad and I feel for you…but your carelessness and your cavalier capacity to tear down whatever no longer serves your fragile identity is indefensible and unacceptable.
The fact that you now wrap yourself in the glorious guise of god may once again serve your masked and manipulative inner master but it puts you no closer to truth. You contend that god wins in the end because you have chosen to co-opt god to augment your own disenfranchisement from self-truth. While you have hitched your wagon to this particular iteration of truth, it doesn’t mean you have found truth. You have simply found a new mechanism of certainty that can be substituted for the ever elusive identity that in the end has ironically come to define who you are and who you aren’t.
Michael, I hope you’re able to find peace…but I have to implore you to do so without attacking those who have journeyed much further along the path.
Regards,
Daniel
Response to this article:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56487